What happens if I cast Replenish and put two Pentarch Wards on the same creature, choosing white each time? I believe they would both fall off, since the wording for "This effect doesn't remove Pentarch Ward" is an alias for "This effect doesn't remove [this card]" which means I think they protect from the other aura. Could be wrong though.

It looks like a typical affinity deck, which I feel is a misnomer since not a single card has affinity, but modular.

Anyways, Hardened Scales looks like a good way to get them monstrously huge, Animation Station gives longterm value so you don't run out of steam, and it even has an Infect/proliferate subtheme. Looks solid all around

Wish I had the images on hand, but several of the newer cards they were showing off in a recent set had a severe uncanny valley look when it came to the overall detail of the face and figure, like you get when someone goes over a friend's facebook photo with a bunch of photoshop filters.

Sorry, I just realized I was shitting up the spoiler thread with my deckbuilding.

I did a quick look at the modern meta and a lot of the BR aggro decks seem to be losing a ton of cards from Amonkhet and Kaladesh (like 20+ cards maindeck) so I really have no idea what removal or things will be played in the new standard.

Anyways, I realized that these three cards form an infinite combo. You can sacrifice Whisper and a bat token to bring back the other Whisper and create a bat token. With two Desecrated Tombs, you can get infinite hasted bats. Obviously it's fairly fragile to removal, especially shatter effects, but this feels like a good skeleton for me to build from. I can do BRG and have a budget of about $20 that I want to put into it, and mostly have BG lands already. I've been tinkering with it to see what works best, and even looked at saprolings (Fungal Plots has no cost on it's sac:draw effect) and it's more robust to some removal.

My local meta is all beginners with 70 card decks full of creatures and life gain, so removal shouldn't be a problem, but I still want it to be robust.

I think the biggest weakness of the deck is that I can only use Whisper infinitely on the other Whisper - so no wacky ETB shenanigans with other creatures per se (once per turn, and I see no untap effects handy). Originally I was going to use the tombs with Macabre Waltz and Reassembling Skeleton and sacrifice effects. UBG could also be a very memey option (using Arcane Adaptation to turn them into saprolings)

Good news! I found my Zektar Shrine Expeditions so I made RDW for tomorrow night. Not sure how I'll handle lifegain decks yet, but I have 8 slots MD to go, still. Sadly only one Searing Blaze but it's good enough to run any copies I have.

Might of Old Krosa seemed really spicy but I don't think it's appropriate for this deck. Maybe with Wee Dragonaughts, but at that point I'd basically be playing RUG Delver. Also I'm very surprised to see Ball Lightning in Modern, I didn't realize it got a reprint! But I guess that Groundbreaker is just a little bit better because you can drop it T2 off Noble Hierarchy

All commons are allowed, except the ones that are banned. IRL, most people use the MTGO banlist for the format. You may want to play it there. Much cheaper. Manamorphose is only a buck online. And tourneys whenever you want.

So I made a few final adjustments to this deck before I played it. I dropped the Zektars and put 2 Fallouts main, and 2 SB, and a few other things. Ended up paying $10 CDN to buy in for the night, cracked Vraska's Contempt from my booster ($18), and went 5-0 overall; got a Sulfur Falls ($8.50) in the prize pool, but $7 in store credit (instead of a booster). I also did enough trades to make 90% of my Whisper deck in standard in 2 weeks. Overall, I came ahead with about $30 in card value tonight.

>Match 1: White guys with lifelink and high toughness, go to game 3

>Match 2: GW Slivers. Went to game 3, aggressively killing the muscle/sinew slivers and gemhides seemed to work well with board wipes.

>Match 3: We were running short on time so guy fudged the round so everyone had a draw, so we could move to top 8

>Match 4: Went 1-0 against a kid who was like 10, with a WU starter Teferi deck. He somehow knew that taking damage was more important than losing a creature but played really really slowly and his dad had to take him home after

>Match 5: GW Slivers (again). Game 1 I fucked up and didn't Burst Lightning his Gemhide and next turn he dropped a Hivelord and I didn't have an answer to it. I thought of having a take back but I didn't mention it because I already passed the turn, and figured we should be more firm on the rules since we were in Top 8 at that point. However, two turns later, he accidentally tapped out and I had lethal next turn and the game after, he got mana screwed

>Match 6: G Hexproof. Just a bunch of dorks with Rancor, Totem Armors and Hexproof. Game 1 went really fast, and I dropped 3 Vexing Devils game 2, and had Volcanic Fallouts to wipe up his attackers while my Burning Tree Shamans closed out the night

So what the fuck is standard going to be like post rotation? Everything feels so bad, I'm getting 7th Edition vibes here

Like, removal is almost nonexistant, and what there is is overcosted. Creature burn exists more than lmayer burn but its like 5cc for 4 damage, or else 2cc for 3. The curve is all over the place, you have shit like 3/2s for 3 with relevant abilities, but then no cards to support them and then cards like Skeleton Archer. There's practically no self discard effects that are repeatable in the format (except on $15 walkers) and new set looks underwhelming.

Seriously, like every deck loses like 90% of its cards from the rotation, what the fuck are the new archetypes?

Teferi seems miles better than all the other cards. I'd be suprised if he doesn't get banned soon. I haven't been able to find an aggro deck in the new standard. All midrange and control. It already looks pretty miserable.

Any hobby that has a severe paywall as the entry hurdle is usually not worth your time unless you actively want to subject yourself to convincing yourself that the sunk cost was totally worth it and that you'll eventually get that payoff you expected at the start when you began playing.

So the last two days I only got 4 hours of sleep each night. I had a 7 am shift that was 8 hours long and as I waited for a bus that didn't run at that time, I checked my store's goybook page and they had a weekly booster draft. I hustled my bike over wearing a fucking heavy jacket because it was cold, and then proceeded to draft. I was not in any state to do so, but I did it.

We used store-made booster packs (mostly uncommons and a few good commons and rares) and I don't think every one had exactly 15 cards. Despite that, we had 6 players turn out and I made sure the drafting process went smoothly. I ended up going UB, and most of the cards were randoms, but it had a mix of some M19 and Dominaria, and a bunch of Khans stuff. I pulled a pair of Dig Through Time (unused), Icy Manipulator, that delve kill spell that costs 5B, and about six effects that "tap/target doesn't untap", including Sleep (bomby as fuck). Went 4-0 on matches and 8-3 overall today. The first game of last match was retarded, I am not exaggerating but I drew lands for 8 turns in a row, after I stagnated his board, but didn't recover. The last two games were very close but I ultimately won (vs GW stompy).

Later, I piloted the rough build of my Desecrated Tomb against one player whose BR pirate deck was likely going to be my main competition. Other than his Angrath blowing up my bats incidentally, I had miles of attrition and went down to about 14 cards left in my deck before I stabilized, combo'd and won. Needs a bit more tweaking, but I think I'll leave my Death Barons in (with Reassembling Skeleton, it's pure value).

The nice guy noob managed to pull Karn and Teferi for his various decks and knows their value, but he's just as likely to make whatever meme deck he thinks is fun even though it'll sputter out if he manages to make it to Turn 6, so I don't think I need to worry about that. Thankfully.

With a few more chapels and packbeasts, I feel like I could run Transmogrifying Wand in here too. I think it's a legitimately great artifact despite standard being shitty... In this deck, it would feed Costly Plunder, let me swing with skeletons and then sacrifice them to get a 2/4 blocker (pseudo vigilance) and also act as a sac/removal outlet, and it could get recycled too. Only need to run one since I can mill myself to find it.

Also considering a Tetzimoc since I can juggle it between my hand, play, and the bin and use it to strategically board sweep

Dismantle says "put X", not "put 1, X times". So, Hardened scales only gets you 1 extra. Of all of the card effects, the Scales would only help significantly with the 4 cost ability since it would trigger every time.

Sorry for the shitty meme but this is how my deck played tonight >>393790

I bought in for prizes and pulled a checkland, and then went 1-3 overall in my games. The game I won, I dropped a Reassembling Skeleton and raced against his 2/2 and then dropped a Trusty Packbeast for the win. It was the worst game to witness. Amusingly enough, because I am the top player there and always win the events, the owner decided to do up a consolation prize for the worst player that night, which happened to be me, so even though I lost, I still ended up winning (and got a second checkland to boot)

On second thought, maybe it'll find a home in Vintage. The restricted spells in the format are so good that the players may be willing to play two extra mana for them. Ancestral recall is pretty good at 3.

Depends in what context. Art? Yeah I remember the days of high quality material from as early as they had money to get it. The art on cards was often better designed than the cards and mechanics themselves.

If you're talking in new ideas, that died shortly after the introduction of Planeswalkers as cards and Mythic Rares, and Theros. You could argue that Innistrad or Scars was the starting point, but while Theros was a Greek Themepark, Innistrad made its horror hat work in a way that felt largely organic, probably because the ideas presented usually had fleshed out and varied ideas to draw from; secret necrotic covens, vampire nobles maintaining a masquerade, werewolf tribes or individuals terrorising the land, and humans worshipping good or evil desperate for salvation. Theros has much more structured stories and ideas to draw from and the delivery was much more shallow.

We had a Modern event at the store today only one other person showed up to play specifically, so we just hung out. He was a kitchen table player, but played the game for a long time and liked making clever decks, which I appreciated. I remade my dredge deck from a few months ago to test it out. Mostly, Commune with the Gods is my own addition, and it also features Tormenting Voice. It's loosely based on Raphael Levy's poxloam deck from 2015, since I don't have Amalgams for the current modern dredge decks. Commune is awesome because it finds Zombie Infestation (if I don't get this, I don't win) and dumps everything else into my bin for more fun.

I have trouble against aggro decks, another person used a burn deck with Guttersnipes and I lost the first game. Conflagrates helped and I boarded in the brownscales for extra life. Not sure what to improve.

Most fun deck in Modern coming through. If your aren't familiar with it, the gameplan is usually to ramp up to 6 mana and then play titans. With the help of bounce lands, amulet, which makes the bounce lands come into play untapped, tolaria west, which can fetch up summoner's pact, each titan that you play can fetch up the lands that give you another one. Tolaria West is crucial for the deck: They hold the thing together and enable the chains. The transmute ability on tolaria west lets you get any 0 mana card in your deck, so all the pacts, all the lands, the ballista and the explosives. Lots of play, choices and tutoring with this deck. It's pretty mediocre in the meta, though.

The deck still has Azusa, but the replacement ramp spells for Bloom, Explore and the scout, aren't as good. Even with more cards devoted to ramp, it's slower. It's no longer the best deck, which it was at one point. Like I said, it's mediocre now. People do well with it occasionally. It was in the finals of a GP a few months back.

Right now? Sort of a shitty version of poxloam that's more about the tokens and less about control, so BRG. I also have the BRG Restore Balance meme deck, which is more casual. I'd probably run Amalgam dredge if I got more into it

If you're on both red and green in modern, you want some number of ancient grudges in your deck. Cheap removal spells are great against both decks: Stuff like Fatal Push, Bolt, the common staples. Don't know if you have those in your maindeck. Kill all their creatures and prevent them from btfo of you in the early game. Aggro decks in Modern are very linear. Prevent them from doing what they want to, and they'll soon crumble.

I think I have 2 Ancient Grudges and 3 Ray of Revelations in my Dredge SB. Might tweak the numbers a bit if I do something competitive, then. 4 Grudges might be overkill, but I know Affinity is nasty (also to stop the Inkmoth Nexus in both).

Against infect, let's say they drop Glistener or Blighted Agent and they uptap with G open, so they have Vines of Vastwood playable. How do I play around that? Do I just throw removal at it until something sticks, or wait for them to do their thing and kill it in response? Against a good player I imagine they'd just chip me for one or two poison, and then leave enough mana open to Might of Old Krosa, then Vines of Vastwood in response to my removal

Many of their protection spells also buff their creature for a shorther clock. Never let them get that kind of dual utility from their cards. In the scenario you talked about, I'd play a land untapped and see what they do during their next attack step. As long as they aren't trying to kill you that turn or tapping out, let them do what they want. Don't want them to be able to respond and turn their protection into pump. Use your mana and try to kill in the end-step. Drain their mana if they have some stuff to interfere. Trading a kill spell for a Vines is fine if you do it at the right time. If you think you can overwhelm their available mana and defenses during your next turn, when they're tapped low, go for it. They don't have any haste creatures, so it's safe as long as they don't get to untap with a threat. Be wary of Mutagenic Growth, of course. It's all pretty straight-forward, desu.

MtGA allows you to get everything for free and in general is very generous. Even if I dislike the way auto tapping works in there, its never a problem unless your deck has lands that tap for generic mana and you don't need to use their special abilities just yet.

Also there's manual mode where you click to tap the lands yourself.

Worst thing I can say about it is that it might lead you to buying physical MtG cards.

Well the release event was pretty fun. Our store just got sanctioned so it couldn't do the prerelease, only the release today. We did the 3 booster draft as normal, but we're in Canada, so it was like $25 to buy in. We were supposed to start at 7, but didn't start until 7:40 because of general rambunctiousness (we're usually late to start).

Drafting went okay. My newish coworker sat to my left and P1P1 picked his one card and passed it left. I had to clarify how things go. It took him 5 minutes to pick a first card and by then all the packs were lined up for him. He passed a Steam Vents. Very disappointing to see. One asshole opened his pack and pulled Assassin's Trophy, so he was personally up to 3. I hate it.

I went UB, after I saw 2 Whisper Agents get passed, I grabbed 2 and they went around to me. I had lots of aggro lowcost creatures, and ended up with enough G to splash it (Siege Wurm and the hexproof one, plus Golgari stuffs). In the finals I played against coworker who went Boros and took game 1. He had a staggering amount of misplays in the second game (two +2/+2 spells on a 0/4 wall to kill my 3/2, not using his guildmage EOT to burn me or tap my wurms, etc). We each won a game, I offered to split, and then we played the last game for fun, he got me down to 1 and topdecked the nu-lightning helix for match, and I would have had him two turns later. Really close. Fun set.

In other news, I did some trades with others and mostly have Izzet spellslinger deck built. I brought 632x $1 dollar rares to the store and negotiated a trade with the owner. Originally I wanted to do 60:40 consignment, but he offered 70% buyout. I didn't think they were worth that much (some were shit like Squire or really beat up), so I rounded it down to 600 cards at 60%, and got $360 CDN credit.

I bought two Sulfur Falls (up to three) and two Snapcaster Mages (Innistrad) for $90 CDN. I still have about $160 left, didn't lose anything particularly valuable, and got a solid foot into UR Delver if I choose to build it, as well. Fantastic night

Still trying to figure out exactly what I want to build, while acquiring a few cards from others here and there. I'm up to 3 Experimental Frenzy (one is foiled), 1 Risk Factor, and a few other things. I'd like to get a set of Runaway Steam-Kin, too.

My meta is going to have a few W/WG token decks, someone has 3 Assassin's Trophy, so he might do something with those, and everyone else is probably going UR. I will be expecting a lot of Guttersnipes, 2 toughness creatures and stuff, so I'd probably MD a few Dragonauts, and avoid the snipes myself (I already have a set of them anyways), with like 3 Dragon Claws in the SB.

Oh yeah, also we had a "Modern event" tonight (we usually hold random shit on Sundays). I showed up 45m after the proposed time at the store, and we had a turnout of 4 people, including me. I decided to run my aggro loam dredge build this time, and bought in for $10.

>Booster had foil March of the Multitudes and Risk Factor

>Won the prize after 2 matches, a booster pack and two random uncommons

>Booster had Underrealm Lich

So all in all, I paid $10 (CDN) and got like $40 value from it.

What sucks is that everyone is trying to get a set of Steam Vents for their shitty meme izzet decks, which means trading is almost impossible. On the other hand, they're only as expensive as certain checklands right now, so they're very buyable.

It's a nice dream anon, but unreliable. How are you gonna stall long enough in those colours to make it happen? You're much more likely to just kill your opponent outright by turning sideways with stuff red/white gives you.

This is a cool Standard deck that I saw a streamer play. You buy time with burn until you hit 6 mana, play the storm enchantment and then go off the next turn like a storm deck. Cantrip a few times, play the Pillage that gives you lots of mana once its copied and then play a lightning strike and get 7 extra copies. The deck seems pretty cheap to build too.

Compared with Telling Time (eg for Modern), I feel that it lets you dig a bit better. But on the other hand, putting stuff on top is more relevant there. Both serve different purposes, but ultimately I like Anticipate (more than Opt!)

Noone wanted to talk about the pauper decks that I posted. A shame that so few people here play the format. It's fun, interactive, powerful and cheap. It's great. Some of the best pauper decks, like the tribe deck that I showed, could probably be competitive in Modern, even with the terrible fetchlands.

Okay so I built it and goldfished a ton. Pic related is the exact list I'm running right now.

One game, I played Treasure Map and Wee Dragonauts. By the time it went off, I dropped Adeliz and did like 3x3 damage red spells and basically killed them on the spot. It plays suspiciously similar to how Delver dicks does in Modern. I would seriously consider Mission Briefing and more treasure maps; Experimental Frenzy doesn't come up very often, funnily enough.

And here's an "ideal" version with hot tech. Specifically, the Buccaneer's Bravado is a nice combat trick, but it really shines with the Stormtamer - with Adeliz out, it becomes a nasty pseudo dragonauts, but faster. It can also protect your guys as they hammer away every turn. Most games I've tested end on turn 4-5, depending on draws.

Yeah, more tempo-based aggressive decks are interested in the cheap spell. I've seen some counter-burn decks with electromancer play Radical Idea. It's a weak card, though. Chemister Insight is the much stronger card, but 4 mana is too much for some decks.

Two mana for some digging is very expensive. Modern is all about mana efficiency. While the guy with the 2 mana cantrip improves his hand a bit, the other guy, with his meta deck, will do stuff like play a tarmogoyf or put alot of 4/4s on the battlefield for free. Cards like Serum Visions and Opt do almost as much as Anticipate, and they cost half as much to cast. Desu, it's not good enough for Modern, not close. Barely enough for a low-powered Standard, I think. Serum Visions, the best of the cantrips, isn't great either.

Huh, just realized that pic related is the only enchantment sweeper in standard. There are a few other cards that destroy or exile one or two, or are strapped onto a dork, but this is the only actual sweeper. This means that depending on what comes out in the next two sets, going wide with enchantments/auras might be possible.

I realized this because I thought Doom Whisperer might work with Enhanced Surveillance to enable >>396339

>win, lose, then win my match in the pairings, first game of finals is a stomp for me, too

>second match is against the guy I lost to earlier, again stomp (he went Boros and had a bunch of equipment and tricks that stopped my burn)

>finals is me versus an oldfag that came back into the game recently, made a "thrown together" BG deck that was basically tier, with Vraska's Contempt, a lot of attrition stuff, and lots of explore effects, just a really good deck in general

Overall I'm happy to have been stomped by it because it's a legimately good deck and I know the player was competent, so it was a deserved loss on my part

4 accusers, and harassment is supposed to have occurred at parties. I wonder if they are trannies or real women. I've been watching him streaming on Twitch for a long time. He quit his teaching job and made Magic his full-time profession. His whole career is ruined now.

That's just great. Apparently, the card isn't really banned in Modern, but this may mean that they intend to get rid of it. WotC have mistakenly announced bans by getting ahead of themselves on MTGO before. I have no idea why they'd want to do it. Humans isn't even one of the best decks.

Nevermind. Had a look at mtgtop. Humans is the most popular deck at 10%. Cavern is probably the best card to ban from the deck if you want to bring it down a notch, which is how the company likes to handle their bans. It certainly wouldn't kill the deck. I think the card's likely a gonner.

After getting thoroughly BTFO by BG Midrange last week (ran UR Spells), I saw how good Explore was. So here's the base of a budget deck I'm tinkering with that's inspired by Miracle Grow. I figure that explore acts as a replacement for Land Grant, Deeproot Champion replaces Quirion Dryad, and it still has the control-ish elements

Since there's few sweeps in standard, Clarion is very strong. I never actually got to cast it last week since it was SB, and when I did put it in, I didn't have the lands to quite support it (only 3 RW shocks). So instead, I tweaked my deck to be heavily blue, added a bunch more lands and it's good now.

Countermagic is great, holy. I know that's a silly thing to say for someone whose played for 15+ years, but like, I've always shied from it because it doesn't affect the board state much. But even the Spell Pierces, if I tried to bolt something, they'd tap their last mana out to save it, and it stopped their trick at the right time, every time. Someone tried to stick The Eldest Reborn, or Phyrexian Scriptures to get dat midrange game stuff, and I stopped them dead. Like Fight with Fire, Disdainful Stroke is there to stop their big scary mid-late game stuff.

As for highlights, we had 10 players, I went 2-1 in the first group of games, then went 2-0 in the top 4 for $25 of prizes, pretty good. My loss was 1-2 against a Boros deck, but while that guy made it to top 4, he got eliminated and I played a different Boros played in the finals, and he had a bunch of auras that gummed up his card advantage, so I was able to quickly and easily outpace him in the last two games of the night (was down to 3 life when I stabilized then beat him to death with an 8-turn clock on Goblin Electromancer).

What's really cool is having Adeliz out with a few other dorks, casting Opt or Bolt, and then finishing with a Clarion. This will wipe their board, make my dorks survive, and with lifelink. It's just so good when you can make it work like that, and if not, it's just a great reset for card advantage. Someone else played Rite of Belzenlok and I was holding Opt, Wizard's Lightning, and Deafening Clarion. I let him get his tokens, swept the field, he got his demon, and on the turn he could've attacked, took his six, and bolted him twice for game.

The other memorable games were won by Fight with Fire. I won 3 games because of it. One game let me reset his board. Another game, the other guy was at 12, swung in with Electromancer into a Fresh-Faced Recruit. He took it to 10. Instantly had lethal. The last game I won with back to back FWF

And of course, other guy didn't show up with his BG Midrange deck this week so I had no trouble stomping everyone, but I'm pretty thrilled at how well the deck works now

Saw a cool deck on a stream a few days ago. It's as close to dredge as Standard is going to get in a long while, I think. The gameplan is pretty straightforward. Put stuff in the graveyard as quickly as possible, buy time with the Crippling Chills and Narcomebas, and if everything goes right, overwhelm the opponent with endlessly recurring phoenixes. I stuck around in the stream for a while, and it seemed fun to play. It's a shame that the phoenixes are so expensive now. They're a great to build around, and I'm interested in the deck.

This is probably too expensive, but a guy used it to drop Creeping Chill and got the upside that way. I like the idea of your deck, but is self mill viable? What sort of deck would you board Sleep against, aggro? Might be nice against Boros.

Yeah, 5 cmc is too much. Better to mill the important cards. The deck's pretty competitive, and there's probably some way to improve it. The streamer was pretty succesful with it, I think. In some games, it looked like a Modern deck. He attacked with 4 drakes on turn 4 in one game that I saw. Though, if you want to maximize your chances of winning and don't really care about the fun aspect, there are better deck choices.

>What sort of changes would you suggest for my deck then?

4 Electromancers seems like alot for your deck's curve, with lots of cheap spells. With 24 lands, it doesn't seem like you'd get much use out of electromancer's discount ability. I'd consider adding two Chemister's Insight and maybe a Beacon Bolt over deafening clarion, curve-toppers that aren't too expensive for the aggressive deck when you have an electromancer in play. Either that, or you could cut a land and one or two electros and be even more aggressive. Not a fan of the Clarions. Don't think that sweepers belong in tempo decks, and you're going to be faster than most of what you face, so the lifelink option seems equally pointless.

My ideal game is T2 Electromancer, T3 Adeliz and swing for 4, T4 triple bolt and swing for lethal. Obviously that doesn't happen much but it's a thing I can do. Mostly, I have the Electromancers in there so all my spells just 1cc, but also to help reach Fight with Fire kicked, which has won me a few games. And like I said above, Adelize can protect my dorks if I play one other spell before Clarion.

However, one change I'll do is adding perhaps 3 Sleep to the SB, since of our 10 players, 2 play RW (and two others play UR), and that'll hopefully shit all over them. I did just crack an Ionize, so maybe that can replace a Negate or something.

I might be okay with replacing Radical Idea for Chemister's, since it's 2 more cards to draw overall, and it gets a bit more benefit to their effect. We'll see for next weekend. Really, I run the Clarions to stop their pressure and give me some breathing room. I'm okay with losing a creature if it means killing 3 of theirs, a lot of my games have been won by just having card advantage.

Oh shit I need Syncopates just in case someone decides to be a memelord and runs phoenixes (thankfully everyone is too much of a poorfag to do so)

Shit, I was going to make a dumb deck around Haphazard Bombardment and The Eldest Reborn but I completely misremembered what Trusty Packbeast did and thought I could more reasonably recurse enchantments in standard, but apparently not. I was going to run like Deafening Clarion into The Eldest Reborn as BRW control with enchantment subthemes. Otherwise pic related is the only way to get back enchantments in standard

I think anon's argument isn't that they're the exact same, but that they fill the exact same role.

Because all three are in standard, you can run 12 cards of the same cost, colour, type and removal, with some of them being strictly better in some circumstances. Hence 'effective'.

By the way, Hero's Downfall literally is Murder if your opponent doesn't have a planeswalker (on board or in deck), because no cards fetch for planeswalker in rules text, and I can't recall anything that allows you to change 'Planeswalker' to another word.

Looks like it. Nothing on Twitter. In his bio there, it says that he's still an employee of SCG. Hasn't even changed that. Maybe he's still holding out some hope that's its just a bad dream. No streams. Nothing.

Yeah that's what I'm saying. Like, normally you see something like Terramorphic Expanse vs Evolving Wilds, which was a functional reprint and for some reason this gets done when a card is rotating into/out of standard? I don't understand how that makes a difference.

Either way, it felt like the effect is too prevalent, even though nobody would really use it outside of draft.

Todd Steven's back. He's streaming right now. It's sad to watch. Sounds like he's barely holding back tears. All of his sponsors have dropped him, and the streamer group he was in, rogues gallery, "a collection of small streamers that support each other", have done the same. The irony is brutal. The roastie mod that took the opportunity to shit-talk him on reddit, kick him when he's down and doesn't have much social capital, is gone too, I guess.

More gossip. The Ponder podcast apparently dropped him aswell. Lots of "listen and believe" NPC's from reddit that are dropping by to throw insults. He's getting alot of subs and support, though. Maybe this entire episode will knock some sense into the Magic community. The crazy leftists that are in control need to be cowed.

Whats the answer to standards BG Golgari Midrange? It seems like it stacks efficient removal with value creatures with ETB effects.

I was running UR Burn last week and I think Wee Dragonauts are too slow against it since they can be shut down so easily. Instead what if I went full counterburn with a set of Ionize and Negates? At that point I'd basically have 10 or 12 counters, but I figure i just need one threat to stick and never give them a chance to explore

I think Jeskai control is the deck with the best matchup against BG. The matchup is very lopsided without carnage tyrant, and even if they have 4 of them after boarding, you have ways of dealing with it. I think the blue deck's slightly favored, all things considered.

This is a random list I found. I don't have the Teferi's and I don't think I ever will (does he even see play in Modern? For the price, I'd rather just stock up on shocklands if not fetches)

It seems that they just play a lot of cantrips and spells to fill the bin, then with with a big drake in the air after the opponent runs out of fuel. I feel like the list works because it has a lot of drawing and filtering (opt, surveil, chemister's) to find silver bullet cards that make it robust against many decks. I'm surprised this list doesn't run at least one Mission Briefing as a way to reuse one of its tools.

Yeah, he'll be a staple there for a long time. He's probably better in the format than the good Jace. He shows up in two blue control decks.

>mission briefing

Too slow and clunky. The spells aren't good enough to justify the extra cost, and you don't get a 2/1 out of the deal.

The gameplan's the same as with every other control deck: Grind, grind and then grind some more. These decks are designed so that the longer the games go on, the better spot for them. They're supposed to win the late game against every other deck. They only play out the creatures when they want to put you out of your misery.

Well, as we move into the holidays, my work is having me come in afternoons for full shifts, with Sun/Mon as my days off. So I won't get to play FNM for a while.

Incidentally, I just did a pauper draft at my LGS using store-made packs again ($5 CDN entry). Only had 4 people turn out, but we all played each other and I went 2-1, 2-0, and 2-1, coming in first. Drafted WU Blink, which were cards like Hussar Patrol, Eldrazi Skyspawner, and the Glen Elendra Pranksters, plus a few tricks like Swords to Plowshares and Snap. About half of the games I won were due to mana/color screw on my opponents, but I got a GRN pack and popped a 5th Sacred Foundry, so it was a good night all in all.

Just my own shitty deck ideas. For example, I have a set of foundries and Clarions now, so I was looking at 4+ toughness dorks in standard and saw Surge Mare. Thought it might be good utility, since it can block with a fat ass, then swing in and draw me some cards after I sweep. But it'd die if I attacked with it the same turn I cast Clarion, and realized that Drakes have 4 toughness by default so they're pretty much a better choice anyways

>One of my pals got a GRN box in, fuck it I guess I'll head over to the LGS

>Help him and another crack his packs

>Some decent stuff

>Send him approx $54 in trades for about $57 back, lost a Steam Vents but gained a Temple Garden, Sacred Foundry, and Overgrown Tomb to replace it

>Gave away my random red shit like Banefires and Runaway Steam-Kin for a set of Pelt Collectors and 2 more Knight of Autumn I needed to round out my set

>Even if my immediate trades were a bust, I came away with more long term value so it was a net win for me

Oh yeah and I decided to buy 2 packs randomly and pulled an Assassin's Trophy and an Arclight Phoenix, so I spent like $15 (CDN) on two boosters and ended up with ~$42 value, on top of my trades. Overall a good night, and I'm starting to get a decent number of shocks (I have most of my checklands in a playset now)

What I want to do is base it around Pelt Collector and Knight of Autumn. At least two people are playing UR and have drakes, and the interaction between Kraul Harpooner and Pelt Collector or Assure is just too spicy to ignore.

In Golgari, there aren't any for the main deck, but it's still a lousy card since you're paying 2 for the opponent to give you his worst card. I'd just add a few Duress to the sideboard. That card is actually good in the meta.

I have a bunch of decks on MTGO. Nothing in real life. Amulet and U Tron in Modern, and Tribe and Tron in Pauper. Elves in Legacy. Standard's looking sweet. Much better than it's been in a long time. I'd have built a phoenix deck by now if the bird weren't so expensive. Also, thinking about buying Amulet, the actual cards. It's pretty cheap.

Because 8chan needs to go the way of all things. /Pol/ was corrupted by stormfags, the whole site was flooded with imgurites, redditors and gullible idiots, and the few left from before the influx are just too stubborn to let it go.

I am just bored as I can't afford obtaining /fit/ness and life is hell.

More than 220k people come here everyday, according to tracking sites. The stats aren't too bad. Much of the internet seems to be hurting right now. In the same timespan, reddit lost almost 3/4 of its userbase, and 4chan lost 2/3. This place only lost a third. It'll probably bounce back soon, desu.

Oh boy, tonight was good. I think we had the usual 10 players or so come in, I went with the same Jeskai colored spell deck I had last week, which had Dragonauts and Adeliz and was generally kinda clunky, but could win.

I looked at a number of lists and ended up with pic related. I scored the Mission Briefings last week, and had Karn fall into my lap today (traded a Crucible and something else for him and that $8 UG Merfolk lady with draw). Revitalize is actually super good in this deck, I saw other lists run it and I was skeptical, but really it just buys you turns to stall until you get enough mana to stabilize with a counter+sweep or what have you.

First game loss against UR Drakes below I died to a big Banefire... not sure how to survive that when it's in the 8+ range and you're low. Deafening Clarion is hilarious with drakes or a bird army, at one point I flipped life by +12 even though my drake was chumped. Mystic basically won me the night, because nobody was expecting a token army. If I slapped him out on turn 6, all I had to do was stall and counter their threats/answers and it rewarded me. Disgusting card.

I think the funniest thing was guy playing Risk Factor at me, so I copied it with Expansion // Explosion, and then countered his with another card. Then later, he tried to flashback it, so I cast Mission Briefing and flashbacked my Expansion and did it again. Absolutely hilarious.

Seriously, there were at least 4 players running UR tonight, maybe even 5. Everyone was running at least one Steam Vents, but I think I'm the only one with the Sulfur Falls instead (though I wish I had them). So basically you can expect to run into drakes. Constantly. I can comfortably make meta choices about dealing with 4 toughness bad boys, eg Lava Coil or whatever.

Now what do you guys think of Crackling Drake vs Enigma Drake? Crackling replaces itself, but it comes out one turn later (which is a pain because you should play it T6-7 after you have the mana), but it also can get hit by Disdainful Stroke. I kind like the enigma drakes more. HOWEVER, against a deck that can exile your bin, the Crackling Drakes are just fantastic, because it doesn't even affect them

The casualization of the content is too much for me. I can't stand how the commentators have to feign excitement over every single thing and simplify it so that even the 90 IQ people that are new to the game can follow it. Fuck Marshall Sutcliffe and his phony yelling over topdecking. Absolute cancer.

>Only loss was against stock Boros shit, he dropped the vindicator and I stabilized at 6 life, blocked with a Murmuring Mystic, then he dealt 5 damage to it and made his guy a 4/1 trample double striker, and I could have double blocked with mystics and won undefeated

I even cracked a shock in my prize pack, I think I ended up +$15 at no cost to myself, and spent it on a few more checklands with enough to buy in for next week.

I played against some high dollar Grixis deck stuffed full of Bolas and Search for Azcantas and that sort of shit, didn't even break a sweat against it. The finals was against a GW enchantment deck, running Seal Away, Ixalan's Binding etc, and angels once they stabilize. Unfortunately, I never dropped a single threat until turn 10, and had disdainful stroke to stop theirs and basically twiddled my thumbs all game

Since Gatherer is shit now and nobody posts anything for the new cards, is there an alternate for quickly finding out if a card is good/shit, what it combos with and random Easter eggs (the goblin here is the same as the one in this other card)?

Every masters set is literally just a money-grab from Lizards of the Coast. They could care less about their majority player base, but milking dem sweet sweet shekels from bourgeois cunts with more money than brains is just too easy for them.

Modern's getting a bit dry. I wonder if Wizards intend to spice it up with some unbans during the Modern season that's coming up next year. Lots of Modern PTs with Twin and/or Stonewaifu unbanned would be fun.

>One guy runs Boros equipment, with Keeper of the Flame and Valduk, as well as a bunch of random dorks, plus Sigiled Sword of Valeron

>As a reminder I am playing Jeskai Control

Normally he's not a problem but as soon as he got swords to stick and swung once, he had a commanding position that was hard to come back from. I played him to start and in the finals. The trick was just waiting for him to play it and attach it, then bounce his creature or destroy the equipment, making him waste tempo

Anyways my prize was 1 pack of GRN and 1 pack of UMA. I got a foil Engineered Explosives

So I wanna run a new deck for next week. I think the reason why it works so well is because of the stall it has in the forms of Deafening Clarion and counters, followed with lots of card draw - eventually other decks can't keep up with its tempo and card advantage and I end up with a hand full of cards to their 1 or 2.

So I think blue and sweeps are essential to make another control deck work. Again, cards like Chemister's Insight and Plaguecrafter might help keep things under control, but I'm not sure.

So I'm building a Pauper battle box, and the two decks I have to start with are BW Extort and mono-G Tron. Any suggestions on what would play well against them? Given that those two decks represent aggro and ramp respectively, I want a midrange and combo deck, plus potentially one more to round out the archetype representation. Things I'm considering are:

>BR Monarch

>Midnight Gond

>Petal Festival/Lookout Storm/Izzet Blitz

>Acid Trip

Obviously I can check the usual places like Reddit but I wanted to know if anyone had experience accomplishing something similar.

What do you think were the best preconstructed decks WotC ever shipped? What do you think the easiest to make into a usable casual deck is?

Gamenight White has the makings of a playable white weenies deck. Just needs to drop some of the worse creatures for removal and lockdown. It's also newbie friendly: Buff your creatures, remove threats.

Modern is the same minus Chain Lightning, so those decks sometimes slum it with Shard Volley if they're mono-red, or splash for a secondary colour. RW is the go-to, since it provides Lightning Helix and Boros Charm. RB is a recent contender due to providing Bump in the Night for another bolt.

Some people. have been testing Vexing Devil and Claim // Fame, but it had limited success at most.

>Last week I won at least two games because I badly misread Karn and thought his tokens were thopters, and not just generic ground dorks

>Wasn't trying to be malicious but opponents didn't read it either so it got missed completely

Thinking about running 3 Fountain of Renewal SB for aggro matches, since lifegain seems to shit on them; they also let me filter lategame, and count as an artifact for Karn, so it's not "just lifegain".

Otherwise, I'm going to run more counters in the board. Usually, Disdainful Stroke manages most of their nasty creatures, but there's a few things that stick that I can't deal with easily (usually drakes). Probably going to run 4x Negate and 2-3x Essence Scatter between MB/SB

Okay, we only got 5 players turn out (peak was 10-12) so it looks like winter is infrequent FNMs.

Anyways, I got my Fountain of Renewals, cracked a Jadelight Ranger from a pack, and did a few other trades. I put 3 Beacon Bolts between MB/SB since I realized it kills a drake and is a soft 2-for-1 card advantage. In hindsight, Jump Start is a really good mechanic because it makes late game plays even better

Most likely an attempt to increase sales by making the package seem special to the Chinese market. They might be more likely to purchase it if they feel they are getting something extra out of the deal that the rest of the world is missing out on. The cards are intentionally designed to be unplayable in any format though so no loss.

It was essentially one big party before New World Order kicked in and threw existing design philosophy out the window. Time Spiral and Lorwyn/Shadowmoor were a one-two punch that made them double down on "power shift."

WotC considers Time Spiral block a design mistake. In their eyes it was too complex for new players in both gameplay and flavor (pretty much every card in the block is a reference to one or more pre-modern cards. For example Jaya's abilities are nods to Pyroblast, Incinerate, and Inferno, all cards with flavor text attributed to her). Planar Chaos threw out the rulebook entirely. Some people managed to miss the point and hope up cards from it as precedent for later designs, most notoriously Pongify getting a functional reprint in Rapid Hybridization. Future Sight was fucking perfect and set the bar of creativity way too high. Really, go look at some of the cards. It's such a great set.

So then Lorwyn/Shadowmoor comes out and WotC blames its lack of success on a lack of human characters and the fact that we were in the midst of the largest Standard format in history (for reference, the were at least 3 playable combo decks in the wild. Dragonstorm, Revilark combo and Pickles come to mind. There was also a drop in event attendance, either due to complexity or because Mirrorodin rotated when TSP came in.) Tribal is fun and simple deckbuilding, Modern Masters is probably the closest thing to a revisit we'll ever get seeing as like half the set was reprinted there. Creatures were strong and the mana was insane, 5 Color Control was a real deck and it ran fucking Cryptic Command. It also set the standard for good bodies and powerful ETB effects that weren't hideous to play with Evoke. Mulldrifter is Divination at worst, late game it can block. Shriekmaw is reasonably costed for what it does and can just be Terror in a pinch.

Alara really sealed the deal with the likes of Bloodbraid Elf and Wild Nacatl. By making powerful creatures and weak spells the pet much turned the game upside down and led to the rise of 3-color goodstuff piles.

Last note because I forgot what my original point was, but planeswalkers are TERRIBLE from a design perspective. They have so much inherit rules baggage and have eaten into the mechanical identities of artifacts and enchantments and that ALL DO THE SAME THING. They're just fire-and-forget value engines that win the game unless you're opponent deals with them that push the idea that a card is unplayable unless its just good on its own.

I still haven't gotten used to walkers and it's been what, 10 fucking years? They just feel clunky. I think they were supposed to pop into the midgame to prevent boring draw-go matches, but in reality whoever lands one and makes it stick almost always wins.

Ran Jeskai again this week. 12 players, played against that one troublesome guy with his Golgari Midrange deck. Nice guy but I went 1-2 against him and only due to mana screw. I haven't beaten him "legitimately". His deck is just too tuned. Anyways, went 6th overall, cracked Ral from my entry pack, so I mostly broke even until I opened another 3 packs afterwards because he finally got more GRN in

In the next week or two I'm thinking of making either GW Satyr Enchanter aura control, or maybe UBR that I described here >>404635

>LGS owner is fairly casual but wants to go to PTQ Toronto for the 3 teams Modern event to advertise his store

>He's running Infect with some loan cards

>I plan to run some variant of Dredge

So it turns out that I have most of the cards for this deck. I don't have MTGO nor want to get into it, so I don't see a lot of Modern play. I know roughly what decks are run, but that's no substitute for actually playing against them. I hear a lot of the format meta depends on GY hate. For example, delve, goyf, dredge, phoenix are all (or were) fairly common and that makes Leyline very common; obviously this list runs Nature's Claims in the SB but I have no idea how to play against stuff game 2.

My other concern is that the format will be very GY heavy and I don't want to run into every match running a set of Leylines in the board

Well I got most of this deck assembled / on order. Lands are shitty and I'm just using whatever 7 or 8 fetches I actually own, looking to buy 1 Stomping Ground still.

I proxied up a few games against infect. I've had a few games where I really really really wanted to just draw cards and get a second land to get LFTL engine going, but stuck with it and just kept dredging to hit Narco+Amalgam and eventually won that way. More often than not, Chills kept ending up in my opening hand, but I'd keep them because I'd have FL or momhug that set things up.

My concern is Phoenix. I can't afford Leylines, but need something spicy to deal with it.

>one-sided, jund-coloured, spicy graveyard hate that can synergize with dredge

This is all I could think of after a cursory search; it's a pretty narrow field and it may just be that you're better off eschewing the Phoenix matchup and focusing on matchups which a few sideboard cards can shift in your favour.

I'm playing in a Two-Headed Draft Tourney with a friend tonight, my FLGS moved to a bigger location and they're celebrating by doing this. I've played Draft like once, and have no clue how this Two-headed thing is going to affect the draft pick. I will take any advice anyone has for this, be it video, PDF doc, or blogpost, so please, shill me with draft/Two-headed advice.

There have been some pleasant surprises in the full Ravnica Allegiance spoiler for my pauper battle box and the format as a whole.

>summary judgement

Significant upgrade over Gideon's Reproach in white control decks such as caw blade. Notably, it can kill Gurmag Angler, which was previously reserved for counterspells and Journey to Nowhere.

>faerie duelist

This makes mono-U faeries a pretty decent tier 2 deck, when paired with Spellstutter Sprite (obviously), Faerie Miscreant, and Latchkey Faerie. There are also some surprisingly good blue faeries at common, so perhaps this will become a fun and viable addition to the format.

who am i kidding delver is still just better

>deface

Not really playable in Pauper, but one of my battle box decks will be a defender-based infinite mana combo deck, so this will be prime sideboard material for some of the other decks.

There are targeted, "colorless"/B graveyard removal that don't quite synergize. And mostly see play in other decks that can abuse them. But at least is slightly better then saying "just get surgical extraction, they're a few dollars cheaper then the leylines".

So each team takes 2 cards per booster instead of 1. That's actually fairly interesting because it means that right after you pass the pack you've opened, you're essentially at Turn 3 in a normal draft, where you have to really read the color signal the team on left and right are sending you. Also means you have to carefully manage your picks since you're making two decks.

>you're essentially at Turn 3 in a normal draft, where you have to really read the color signal

Only time I did limited two headed giant, it was "Two-Headed Giant Sealed Deck" where teams shared their product. Probably to avoid difficulty with quoted specifically. Also, I have no idea how this handles at a draft table.

>Two-Headed Giant is absolutely an exception. Players are allowed to communicate with their teammates and assist each other (as they are making picks together, as a team).

Would you give all teams paper and pencils to allow written communication? Is it all grunts? Seems like a weird format.

Someone linked me to this thread, I'm looking for some inspo on building a new casual modern deck.

It needs to be control-ish to get me out of my Creatures: the Gathering comfort zone (and eventually make me a better player too).

I currently have a mono black swamp devotion, BW warriors and Gruul artillery.

I only play filthy casual kitchentable with modern as a reference format as to which cards are allowed etc. but the real problem is it still needs to be some bit of fun playing against for my player group.

If someone could link me some decks for inspiration I'd really appreciate it.

In the meantime here's a deck I made with some cards laying around from pre-release I dubbed Gruul artillery.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the typical Modern control deck will have some utility in its lands (Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, Tectonic Edge) as hate against manlands or Tron. You may want to include these or replace them with your own manlands such as Faerie Conclave, Forbidding Watchtower, or Mishra's Factory.

In Modern? There's no way they'd ban Faithless Looting, and I doubt Ancient Stirrings would get the axe now if it survived Eldrazi Winter, then KCI in 2018. If they do actually ban something, I still think it'd be Tron, although they do place (((collector))) investment above player experience in Vintage, so perhaps the same will hold true of a more popular format.

I don't think they'll unban anything, since there is very little to be gained by doing so and the potential for something to go wrong is significant.

They'd be nice, but I'm going to stick to the Oblivion Rings for now due to budget reasons yeah I know they aren't that expensive but every time I want to order a complete deck every €1 card becomes €5 because the big sellers hike the prices.

They're on my side list to order separately however.

I was also thinking about switching either the Anticipate or the Think Twice for Divination but I'm not sure.

Hey, I'm torn between Oblivion Ring and Faith's Fetters in a soul sisters/cleric deck that wins either by pounding with Ajani's Pridemate made unblockable by Mother of Runes or with a Felidar Sovereign.

Oblivion being cheaper and taking care of state based effects and triggered abilities makes me lean towards it.

Cut one or two of the Mana Leaks and fill in the blanks with Censor. Remand or Delay can also be fun tempo plays, with Remand usually being better due to the card replacement. I'd also advocate shaving at least 2 each of the Azorius Charms and Prognostic Sphinxes.

There would be no ban list if that were the case. If WotC really wants to stop degenerate decks, then they need to stop them where it hits all of them. Taking out the zero mana cost spells would help and that would include the leyline-esque cards that can be played for free on their own and the fow-esque cards that can be cheated out for zero mana on their own.

Rune Snags are less reliable then Mana Leaks. But really only if you run plan to see graveyard hate, or if you don't have a way to constantly draw/discard. So more then fine in a kitchen table deck. Have them in my shitty storm deck, though it is looking like I will dismantle it, and sell the manamorphoses, retool it as something else with the rune snags. Didn't expect the manamorphoses to be worth as much as they are now.

But seriously, I am for increasing the power level. And modern, from my understanding, is that you are able to play a limited form of degeneracy, just without the same budget needed for legacy. So anything that says to unban something, like preordain, twin, SFM, GSZ, I am for.

I find it fucked up that dredge in multiple formats will play leyline of the void.

However, in terms of design, and flavor, I would much rather have leylines then planeswalkers. Leylines that are not void are not everywhere that runs their color. And I kind of view them like FoW, where yes, void is kind of interactive. The combo decks are forced to play the game a little bit longer, or pursue a win through alternate means, or specifically in modern dredge, sacrifice tempo by using a Nature's Claim. As you said.

>I get that most decks need some form of early game disruption to prevent you from just getting BTFO by combo every round, >let's not pretend these shits are well designed.

Agree though. The initial cycle are all over the place, and it is not as if, say leyline of the meek is making BW tokens overpowered.

I get it, you don't like hate cards, but hate cards are an important part of any TCG.

These cards are ideal for what they do, small but powerful effects. Yeah, Sanctity and the Void really hit hard, and anticipation is an amazing card when built around, that's just it, they need to be in your opening hand.

>Interactive means forcing the player to play with their opponent, and not solitaire.

The last time I heard this was someone arguing that Storm is inherently interactive as it forces players to play on its terms or lose. Which I guess is a point, but it's half a step away from saying Belcher is interactive because it checks for counterspells. On that note

>FoW

FoW is interactive in the same way any other piece of generic disruption is. It's a counter spell. It counters spells. Nothing wrong with that. And even then, Force has some deckbuilding requirements to it since you need a density of blue cards for it to operate (granted that has gotten a lot easier these last few years). Like you said, Leylines have no such requirement. They work perfectly fine as off-color hate because all you need is a few sideboard slots.

Get your head out of your ass. I said leylines are bad designs because they're continuous game-warping effects that take effect on turn 0, not because I lost to a random Choke. Let's look at what other pre-game effects exist. >Chancellor cycle

One-shot minor abilities as an incentive to running some expensive fatty.

>Serum Powder

Has a real risk to it since you're never getting those cards back.

>Gemstone Caverns

Permanant, but only works half the time and puts you down a card.

>Sphinx of Foresight

I feel like this card is actually insane. Yeah it's a 4 mana spell, but it makes your first few turns better and rewards you with a great effect once you actually pay mana.

Every other piece of hate has some real cost to it (well, maybe not Surgical Extraction, Faerie Macabre, and Cavern of Souls but again only one of those has a continuous effect).

>Without that, they are 4 drop enchantments.

I've seen very few Leylines ever cast, even when the deck they're in is on color. Sanctity and the Void see play because if you mulligan into them you win.

Learn how triggers and the stack work, mate. When the cute lion enters play and a target has been chosen, the trigger with the effect goes on the stack, which is a zone for spells that have been cast but haven't resolved yet. If you played it, you can hold priority and choose to respond first, which means that it's your turn to act, but the other guy gets his turn after yours. What can you do when you have the priority and something's on the stack? Activated abilities and instants, and flash creatures that function like instants. If you want to do any of these things, the new stuff also goes on the stack, and resolves in the order from newest to last.

A bolt cannot stop the cast trigger, with the bounce trigger on the stack, after the spell resolves and becomes a creature, you get priority, from there, you can choose to bolt the lion, the trigger wont fizzle, and he will still have to pick up another creature (since the whiteman is dead after bolt resolves).

If I cast a boardwipe saying "destroy all creatures" or "all creatures get -10/-10", and a creature has protection for the same color of that boardwipe, is it still destroyed since it doesn't specifically target it?

>Prowess is too hard for new players, even though there's one or two cards that emulate it in Standard (some Aven)

>Regeneration is too complex (the next time this creature would be destroyed this turn, instead tap that creature, remove all damage from it, and remove it from combat), even though there's a card that taps a creature and gives it indestructible which is more or less the same thing

The only thing I agree with WotC is that Menace feels like the right replacement for intimidate or fear, but I can respect if others feel differently.

Hey, I have a kitchen table (fun) rock and I'm thinking about Phyrexian Arena, but I don't know what to remove. Maybe Wall of Blossoms, since it's only here to work with the Beests? Also, replace Victimize with Unearth or not?

So now that the dust has settled, I'm leaning strongly towards something Gobliny in standard. Not sure what. I'd like to use Skirk Prospector and do a pseudo goblin storm, but it doesn't have a draw engine. The closest is piggybacking off Midnight Reaper but that doesn't guarantee a snowball win

DEBT and Prowess are definitely not too complicated; it's just what WotC has this annoying habit of thinking "noncreature magic" = "instants and sorceries, like wizards" and thus you get messes like pic related, which has Prowess and yet only does its thing using I&Ss. Can't have players thinking noncreature spells are too cool, now.

Regeneration being replaced with temporary indestructible effects or immediate reanimation is fine, though. It's an unnecessarily complicated mechanic for what it does ("this creature survives a kill spell"), and leads to confusion. I recall the first time I learned regeneration allowed the creature to deal combat damage, I was very frustrated because it made no sense to me - it says to remove the creature from combat, after all.

That is literally the reason; it's meant to hose energy counters (or at least try to) in standard, and potentially has some application in EDH to hose experience counters, and the wording allows it to remove poison counters. This kind of card design has clunky wording, but it is good design.

Ah, here's a deck skeleton for what I'm thinking. Reaper only gets nontoken goblins, but with 20 actual goblins to sacrifice to prospector, and spells to replace the ones you generate for mana parity, it should "mostly" work. Not sure what it's building towards

Have you bought your copies for its glorious return tomorrow? A large chunk of the playerbase is unhappy with the current state of the format. Very likely, they're going to ban things from KCI and/or phoenix. And bans are always accompanied by unbans. Jace did almost nothing. Bloodbraid's close to unplayable. Other cards are safe too. I think it's likely that either Twin or Stoneforge is coming back.

Saheeli and the cat do facilitate some decent Jeskai midrange decks focused around flickering permanents (Blade Splicer, Snapcaster Mage, Man-O-War), but the format has accelerated and been so tuned over the last couple years that any cute decks like that have shifted from T2 to unplayable.

I imagine that Modern needs a deck able to do its thing by like turn 3 or 4. So that'd be like Tron, KCI, Dredge, Phoenix, Splinter Twin (banneD), Dark Depths (banned)... Fast decks aren't necessarily a bad thing, but there's too many fast decks

Twin wasn't really a fast deck. No player with more than half a brain went for the combo when the opponent had open mana. It was so easy to interact with, so the usual, very interesting play-pattern involved an early combo creature from twin, tapping down a land and the opponent holding up mana and represing removal, whether it was in their hand or not, and not developing their board. The fear of the infinite combo from Twin made people play scared, and the red blue deck could ride the tempo advantage to victory.

You don't run either/or, you run both in order to protect yourself from Runed Halo, Surgical Extraction, Pithing Needle, etc. A lot of lists had 6-8 untapping dudes in some combination, 4 Splinter Twin, and 1 Kiki-Jiki mainboard with 3 in the sideboard.

Krark-Clan Ironworks is banned. They considered banning Mox Opal and Ancient Stirrings, but didn't because those cards help enable a variety of decks, and KCI was too much of a problem at pro level play.

>Pauper

No bans, but they're monitoring the format and the dominance of Gush and Foil. If enough people complain on social media, something may change.

>KCI is banned because some people are too stupid to know all of the rules

Wew lad. I'm not upset that it is banned so much as I'm upset that this seems to be a major factor in the decision. I don't consider [Mana abilities don't use the stack] and [Death Triggers] to be an "ancient, arcane rules interaction", and neither should anyone else. Are they going to ban Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar from Legacy too? Because those cards cause identical interactions with far more complicated cards.

It was the unintuitive use of mana abilities, which don't use the stack. You'd sacrifice things at instant speed that couldn't be responded to (though the draw card trigger could still be responded to). So even if you had stuff to do, they'd still get the mana and be better off for it.

Because it is supposed to trigger when successfully is put into play, or when it "dies". They chose not when it leaves play so that it doesn't trigger if it gets exiled, namely one of white's answer to artifacts. Also, not when it is put into the graveyard from anywhere, because then it would trigger on discard and on dredge/mill.

Wasn't this only on "when this creature kills something, . . . " effects? I was under the impression this change was made to eliminate confusion in the event that damage and a -X/-X effect was applied at the same time.

Manlands and that one tree/land die. The theros and nyx gods die when they start off as enchantments. Gideon dies when he becomes a creature as well. They do become creatures first though, and non-creature enchantments, artifacts and lands are destroyed rather than being killed. Planeswalkers dying shouldn't be an issue and it just seems like semantics. Jace taking an infinite damage banefire to the face and then deciding to just leave seems silly considering how badly he and friends got rocked by Bolas and Emrakul.

So tonight's FNM was replaced by a draft from RNA. As usual, I pulled dud rares, but I went into RG. I misread what the Spear Spewer said and thought it was just an opponent, so I ended up drafting 3 and and 3 of the riot guy with discard/draw on attack. Overall I actually came 3rd (of 10th) and went 3-1 on my matches for the night. I made back my money from entry in prizes, and lined up a few nice trades (prize pack had a hallowed fountain, got my growth spirals, etc).

Still not sure what to run next week, but I have my eye on 2 or 3 different decks.

>UR Goblin Tokens with Tetsuko

>GW enchantments with Satyr, kill via Rampage of the Clans

>Jeskai control (current)

>UG big mana / ramp

>Some reanimator?

Also had an idea for UBG self mill. You'd run Gaea's Blessing, drop a Desecrated Tomb and then surveil greedily and deeply for a reset, dumping a lot of guys into the bin. It's probably too janky and complicated to work properly

Sweet deck coming through. I'm not convinced that it's good since the gameplan is usually to play a four-drop creature and tapping it the next turn, or somehow giving it haste, but it's fun. Birthing Pod's kinda back.

BW Extort is a fringe deck even in Pauper, so I can't imagine playing a dies-to-bolt creature and suiting it up with a non-game-winning enchantment would be viable against a field of Phoenixes and Hollow ones. Why did you mention Boros Charm, anyway?

It is a punishment for our degeneracy. You can rage all you want at the deck and how unfair it is, but it will do you no good. Modern lives on the premise that the most efficient and well-layed approach wins.

If there's a mountain lion in the jungle you bring a gun.

If you see a boggles player you ready your edicts and calculate your timing.

Oh yeah, that Explore card seems very strong. Glad I picked up a set as soon as it came out, I know they'll be in demand in a few years, unless it somehow becomes a reprint staple. I don't normally play ramp decks, how much ramp is ideal, or does it depend on the build?

> I don't normally play ramp decks, how much ramp is ideal, or does it depend on the build?

Hard to say since the deck's so new. Ramp certainly makes sense in a wilderness deck. You want to get to 4 and cryptic/wilderness mana quickly. The streamer had a full playset in his deck. Looked good.

Not that guy, but tbh, it looks like a budget BG midrange deck, and the expensive version is not good right now in the format. Also, Extirpate in the maindeck, and not in the sideboard, makes little sense to me. Anyway, pic related is somewhat similar and lots of fun. Has game against all the field. It's dependent on Heartless Summoning to ramp out value creatures.

In my experience, playing tight and worrying about this stuff almost always means you'll lose to yourself before your opponent needs to do anything; I nearly made day 2 at a Legacy GP a couple years ago, but I got inside my own head and defeated myself in the crucial round. Get a good night's sleep, learn how to goldfish the deck, and you'll do fine.

Most lists run Shriekhorn instead, because it's a generic 1cc drop, and can potentially self mill for 6 cards (and during the upkeep, too). Thought Scour is only being played here because the deck is already in blue, and usually belongs to Izzet Phoenix

Here's a rough first pass for a deck I whipped up very quickly tonight. Playing it next week if I can get what I need for it. The idea is to play fast tokens, then make them unblockable or use cavalcade to chip them away fast. It's pretty aggressive and the token generation shies they away from removal.

I'd want to put Midnight Reaper or Judith in, and cut the experimental frenzy I think

No I'm a dirty dredge player. I just had the amulets from an old trade like 5 years ago and just held onto them and saw them go up in value. Didn't want to build Titan, but was interested. Doing up a post event money evaluation, too

So if you include the travel expenses, it cost me about $120 for a bunch of event entries, about half a box of new cards, and some other shit. If you exclude the misc expenses, I basically broke even, especially if you figure next year I'll avoid the expensive entries. You could also factor that I could have traded $340 or so in value for just $240, but it financed my trip for the most part.

Not really. My matches were against Lantern Control (my only win), then loss against Humans, Hollow One, and someone else. The list I was piloting went 7-1 on some comp leagues (via MTGO I guess?) so the list was fine, I just rushed my plays and went too fast, made mistakes, played sloppily and kept hands I shouldn't have. But then I didnt practice as much as I needed to.

I think I'll bring more decks for next time and grind out side events and turbo town. I cracked my packs and didn't get a single fucking shockland, so i think I'll just sell the packs or trade them or something

Treating the game as a serious investment is retarded, because of massively inflated secondary market prices, so it's better to cash out somewhat before the bubble bursts. I saw a vendor with over $60,000 CDN worth of cards on display in one case alone, all sorts of ABU power nine collector shit, and that's just one vendor in one region. You can't fucking compete and there's better things to put money into.

When we eventually come back to Kamigawa, I want an honest, sincere answer from that kike about why there are suddenly black people in Kamigawa, a plane themed around traditional Asian mythology. And none of this "THEY WERE ALWAYS THERE THEY JUST WERENT REPRESENTED :)" bullshit.

>swamp-dwelling artificer who breaks the law and follows his autism to build cool robots out of salvaged Phyrexian junk

>winds up with a bunch of bickering assholes and helps save everything

>years later gets pulled away from his hut and dragged into another adventure

>purifies fucking KARN and is left to rot in New Phyrexia's core

Venser was a more worthy successor to Urza than Jace will ever be. The only way WotC redeems themselves here is by allowing him his rightful throne as Father of Machines and making Elesh Norn his compleatly perfect waifu

Is there much to consider for how Legacy Dredge works? I saw two lists, one with and without mana. I don't have LED's so I can't make an optimal mana dredge deck, yet I lack a lot of the staples for the manaless version (Chancellor, etc). Does it really matter? Can I just make something like "low mana" dredge and just flip cards until I win?

Yes. When playing Manaless Dredge, ==NEVER MULLIGAN, AND ALWAYS CHOOSE TO DRAW ON TURN ONE.== Your first turn is always "draw a card, enter your end step, discard down to seven, pass." It has a little redundancy in the form of Phantasmagorian (read: as long as this is in your graveyard you can discard 3 or 6 cards at instant speed) and extra explosiveness with Whirlpool Rider, but the deck has no way to fight against on-board hate. You either win, or you do nothing.

LED Dredge is more resilient, but might be a turn-and-a-half slower overall. Breakthrough is deadly, as it reads "discard your hand, mill 4" for U.

Both decide have a combo element, with manaless being more "all-in." Either way, learn to git gud with Ichorid and Cabal Therapy. A lot of times you will live or die based on how you use them.

Manaless is probably the cheapest way to play Dredge in Legacy, though they kinda set it back by banning Gitaxian Probe. My list that I ran before that ban looks about the same, though I didn't run Whirlpool Rider. That first list is also missing the actual "win the game" card, which is Balustrade Spy. The moment you get to bring one back with Dread Return you just win the game.

I'll probably build towards LED then and just proxy them (nobody at my store plays legacy so it'll just be a deck I have)

What does gitgud look like? Is it knowing when to animate Ichorid, or just know what cards to therapy for? Mostly I wanted to make it because of BFB/Dread Return/Flamekin combo from back in the day but I guess he isn't used anymore?

Why does Whirlpool show up in one list but not the other? I'm assuming he's basically the creature version of breakthrough

Whirlpool Rider lets you Dredge for every card in your hand. It should win you the game if it goes off but despite running Black Lotus the deck doesn't actually want to spend more than one mana on its spells. Optimally you would Dread Return it into play.

Well we only had 7 people hang out, 4 actual players, but 12 reported entrants :^)

Anyways, we had a 3 player tie for first because he just had round robin for the night. In lieu of prizes, we all just split on a bunch of FNM/promo cards he had, so it wasn't all bad. Deck did alright. I went 2-1 on matches, would've went 3-0 if I was paying attention and didn't misplay a particular game

No decision on it yet, I think. They tested it for the tourney. Seems to have gone well for Standard, but they'd be foolish to introduce it to the eternal formats. It'd break all the combo decks. I mean, it's very possible that they are that stupid, which worries me.

Blue's been getting a lot of good tools. It probably wouldn't be so bad for other colors if wotc would stop giving them half-assed cards out of fear of making them too strong. Then again, a lot of players eat that shit up regardless.

Beefing up Bazzar and fast combo aren't even the scariest thing about the London mulligan. Giving a level of real consistency to prison decks like Shops and Eldrazi Stompy is what we should really be worried about.

For context, vintage Shops is currently favored game 1 against DREDGE.

I'd much prefer it if you fucking didn't. If there are 2 lock pieces and a Workshop in your top 16 cards (mull to 5, keeping 1 card each time), you win. Hell you could go as low as 3 in hand and STILL be favored across the board.

Yeah. Back when planeswalkers were able to create their own realms. And were pseudo-gods. There is a reason why she wasn't made into a card, but alluded to. To keep some form of mystery, and imagination to her powers.

She may be white, but her art is pretty shit in terms of design. The ult is nice, but the +2 and -3 are shit. +2 should create the token and -3 should buff them all up at the least. She's a worse version of Elspeth with her current setup. To make her more unique, she could have been given the ability to add white mana, similar to Xanagos. Instead of a creature being required for the ult, it could have required an enchantment instead. At the very least, it would have been a bit more flavorful given her land.

>Cabal

It's meh. Cabal Therapy is superior at doing what it does and inquisition and thoughtseize are better at disrupting hands. Therapist's main issue is its timing restriction. It's too fucking slow.

Preview cards from the new set. If these two are any real indication of the set as a whole, then the cards are largely going to be playable in edh rather than modern. Of course, that depends entirely on what comes of "new cards and reprints of cards not legal in modern". Some new strong cards could show up, but it'll probably be one or two given their current track record. Legacy staples could get injected into modern as well. It would make sense if wotc is planning on creating a new eternal format to replace modern.

>Spark flares during some unknown incident, thought it might be black mana, or even Phyrexian related.

>plane hops, decides instead to create her own plane, one of pure white mana. Artificial Planes in the old lore required constant attention, mental energy, and maintenance, otherwise they would fall into disrepair and eventually collapse. (pic one related)

>sits there for an unmentioned amount of time, even creates her own Lucifer, named Radiant, who occasionally tries to take the throne.

>one day Urza and Xantcha arrive, purely by accident. Serra heals them, both are so corrupted by black mana she says that her magic would kill them.

>turns out Urza didn't wipe off his shoes, and a little bit of black mana got into the plane.

>Cleaning this, well within Serra's power, is too much for the strong woman, and she leaves her creation behind.

>Radiant quickly takes control of the plane, combined that with the fact Phyrexians brought in sleeper agents, the plane nearly eats itself alive, and Urza turns it into the power source for the Weatherlight.

>Meanwhile Serra discovers Ulgrotha, the Homelands. The Homelands is basically the Ravenloft of MtG mixed with Black Sun. Most of the world is 'the dead zone', a massive void of mana, that kills anything it touches. The land has a number of color aligned rivaling factions, and sea dwarves.

>Serra defends the people of the land from a Sengir that got stuck on the plane named Baron Sengir, who looks at the entire land as belonging to him (even if he actually controls only a small portion of it).

>The largest human civilization, called the Aysen, revere Serra, and build their entire culture around her. She takes a back step, instead, choosing a 'Abbot', who acts as the spiritual leader, and some could say the pope, as a direct line to Serra herself.

>Around this time she meets Feroz, a Planeswalker who believes the summoning of sentient creatures is immoral, and instead uses artifact creatures and spells to duel.

>They fall in love, and decide that they can heal Ulgrotha. Feroz casts a spell called 'Feroz's Ban' which makes entrance into and out of Ulgrotha nearly impossible. The only ways out is a portal under Sengirs Castle, and a portal Serra's Aviary, in case they ever need to leave for emergency reasons.

>They create centers for learning and magic, and all civilizations would eventually prosper under them.

>All laws are passed by the Serra Pope, with the law being that Serra must choose a new one when the previous one dies.

>Knightly order, church, and gargoyles are all at Serra's direct command.

>One day Feroz tries to trap a fire elemental inside a solid piece of raw ice element. The thing explodes, and the Fire Elemental kills him. His last words to Serra was 'it was only following it's nature'.

>Serra is heart broken, she becomes an extravagant walking mess, constantly mourning and living in the shadows.

>an old man dies when she tries to save him, and thanks to the Baron's pursuasion, she leaves this entire civilization that has been created around her decisions, to basically fend for itself. (pic 4 related)

>She ends up on the plains of Sursi, when a mugger attempts to rob her of her wedding ring, claiming to be a planeswalker.

>at first a conflict happens, but Serra, overwhelmed by grief, gives up, and is overwhelmed by a drain life spell.

<Not before a young monk see's her righteousness. He smacks the walker in the temple with his staff, killing him. He then says 'do you have no respect for the divine?'

>He gets followers, and builds the Temple of Serra in Sursi.

>He also cares for Serra, who succumbed to her wounds 50 years later! Meanwhile all she did was lay around and cry.

>Serra dies and gets a monument at Sursi, which becomes home to a new order of Serra Paladins on Dominaria (pic related).

This is why Serra was always useless, but still more interesting then the neo-walkers.

More specifically, it makes sense if they want to bin vintage/legacy for good, and make modern into the "new" oldest format. At least, in terms of official support, since they obviously want to kill off MTGO which is the only place left anyone plays those formats.

I think the game would die overnight if they attacked the eternal formats like that. The big spenders and investors would absolutely panic and cash out since it wouldnt be formally possible to play with the old cards, basically dropping the demand to 0 outside of hardcore collectors.

I'll wait until spoilers for the fall set come along but i have an awful feeling that i might want to cash out some of my collection

> it makes sense if they want to bin vintage/legacy for good, and make modern into the "new" oldest format. At least, in terms of official support.

Their ability to support formats is finite, and it's understandable that they'd want to focus on the stuff that provides revenue. With the new Standard+ that's in the works for Arena and the recent shift away from paper magic to their digital platform, fun and interesting has-been formats like Legacy and Vintage are on borrowed time.

I really could see Wizards pushing modern into legacy and then bringing their standard+ format to paper. They tried to bring in Brawl when edh was already a thing, so that they could push more standard cards.

> i have an awful feeling that i might want to cash out some of my collection

The old Onslaught fetches weren't standard legal until they got reprinted in Khans. There weren't as many magic players back than as there are now, but they were still pretty expensive before the reprint. For example, Wood Foothills' price was cut in half and it's never gone back up to the same level and this is with all of the new players in the format today. I probably would be cautious about holding onto too many legacy/vintage cards that are only holding their value due to low print runs and only getting printed once as those will get hit the hardest. If some spicy legacy/vintage staples get introduced into modern, those will probably lose some value. However, you'll probably also be able to sell them to the modern crowd pretty quickly for some good money too.

I speculate how much the "inability" to play with some of these old cards would matter. I mean, how many people are buying power 9 cards to play with them? I imagine it would be mostly collectors at this point, who shouldn't care about "official" play when they don't intend to play with them anyway.

Perhaps certain lesser cards could drop in value if they are reprinted into modern, but I'd think the big ticket collector items would remain relatively unnaffected.

You're getting this from one league? Literally any tier 30 deck can 3-2 a league on mtgo. Most homebrews can do it. That result proves nothing. I'm thinking tier 4, right next to stuff like grixis control and mill. Still, I'll check out the video.

There are two types of modern leagues on mtgo: competitive and friendly. Checked the video. He's in the friendly kind. There are lots of memers and beginners in those. Depending on the people you get queued up against, you can get the same level of competition as at your LGS. Besides, there's lots of variance with just 5 matches in Magic and Modern. Not impressed by the list. Without looting, I think thing's not good enough.

No khans commons worth more than 20 cents. You can sell cards by either going to ebay or selling them to a LGS if you're in a hurry. LGSes give you like less than their value but it's instant over the counter and easy. Or you could wait for someone to bite on ebay. I don't know how trustworthy tcgplayer is, I've bought from them but never sold for them. Might be worth looking into as well.